


(I wanna be) The Very Best

by Hyeyu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pokemon GO Shenanigans, oh damn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 03:19:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7784617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyeyu/pseuds/Hyeyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“I am not running two kilometers as ‘morning exercise’ just so you can hatch your stupid eggs.” He crosses his arms, scowling around his yawns at where his best friend is standing in the doorway of his bedroom. Two kilometers, what the actual fuck, really. It wasn’t even 6 AM yet.</p>
</blockquote><br/>Unfortunately for Hajime, Oikawa takes to Pokemon Go the way a duck takes to water: very enthusiastically.
            </blockquote>





	(I wanna be) The Very Best

**Author's Note:**

> Working title: POKEGO IWAOI GOD BLESS
> 
> This struck out of the blue and I have no regrets.

Pokemon Go, Hajime decides, is the worst thing to have happened to Oikawa since losing to Karasuno.

“I am not running two kilometers as ‘morning exercise’ just so you can hatch your stupid eggs.” He crosses his arms, scowling around his yawns at where his best friend is standing in the doorway of his bedroom. Two kilometers, what the actual fuck, really. It wasn’t even 6 AM yet.

Said best friend is already decked out in his sportswear, looking ridiculously chipper despite the ungodly hour.“Oh c’mon, what happened to your sense of athleticism, Iwa-chan?”

“It’s regretting answering your knock,” Hajime informs him bluntly.

Oikawa pouts. “It’s just two kilometers -that’s practically nothing. Really, it’s not as if it’s  _ten_ kilometers _-_ ” A considering look crosses his face. “Say, Iwa-chan, do you think we could do five kilometers instea-”

Hajime closes the door in Oikawa’s face.

Ultimately, he ends up jogging the goddamned two kilometers around the track field with Oikawa, along with a couple of other too-awake people who were inconspicuously holding their phones as they ran.

Then he has to buy the biggest milkshake the campus cafe had to offer to console Oikawa over the Rattata that had hatched from the egg he had been running for.

PokeGo, Hajime reiterates mentally, is the actual _worst_.

\---

An hour later, Hajime ignores the Pokemon chatter that has become the norm at Chuo University’s volleyball gym as he moves through the usual warm-up stretches on dazed-autopilot mode. Across him, Oikawa is also stretching, all the while engaged in an intense discussion with a few second-years as to where the strongest pokemon could be caught on campus.

“Someone looks tired,” Takeda, another first-year club member remarks, grinning. “Got lucky last night?”

Hajime grunted what he hopes is a negative response as he reaches down to grab his ankles. He can still feel the burn in his muscles from the unscheduled morning run, and contemplates dozing off this way, head buried in his knees. He might be able to get two minutes of blessed shut-eye in before anyone cottons on.

“As if,” Oikawa sniffs from above him, and Hajime wistfully bids goodbye to that idea. “They’d take one look at Iwa-chan’s face and go running. Speaking of running, Iwa-chan and I were hatching eggs this morning.”

“Ohoh, is that what the kids are calling it nowadays - ' _e_ _gg hatching'?_ "

Nagai, the first-string wing-spiker casually smacks their leering libero around the head. “Don’t defile Pokemon eggs with your crude humor, Sasaki. I didn’t know Iwaizumi also played PokeGo.”

“I don’t,” Hajime tells his knees. “I won’t.”

Oikawa pats Hajime’s back. “It’s already taxing enough on Iwa-chan’s brain to juggle his classes and volleyball practices; I don’t think he would be able to handle the responsibility of catching them all on top of all that.”

“Say that again, Trashykawa,” Hajime says calmly as he straightens back up, “and I will break you.”

Oikawa makes a small ‘meep’ sound, scurrying out of reach as the coach starts calling for the team to gather around for practice matches.

At least during volleyball practices, Oikawa’s dedication to the sport still takes precedence over tiny animated graphics. Hajime thinks he’ll never get tired of the high that comes from slamming a clean set over the net, his fierce grin matching Oikawa’s as they slap a high-five against each other’s palms.

“It’s a scrimmage, for crying out loud,” someone grumbles, “not the goddamned Olympics.”

“Someone sounds a little jealous,” Oikawa singsongs, smile sly as he juts his chin out. “Can’t handle the pressure?”

Sometimes, Hajime loves Oikawa when he was like this, all confidence and skill packaged in a lithe body honed to peak performance by years of practice.

Sometimes, Hajime loves Oikawa, period. Sasaki’s kind of egg-hatching? Hajime thinks he’d like that, with Oikawa. Having him as a roommate didn’t help much in that respect; the constant proximity was maddening, and Hajime’s staunch stoicism has taken so many blows, it had been honed into a fucking art by this point. (Fucking art, get it? Haha.)

He’s made peace with his questionable (re: inevitable) taste though, resigned to silent pining after months of wrestling with his emotions in high school. At least Oikawa’s been too busy with PokeGo these days to entertain his female fanbase; if there was one upside to the game, Oikawa didn’t have as much time to flirt with girls, or respond to their attempts to catch his attention. It was much easier to see Oikawa cooing over a Sandshrew than Nozomi-chan from the Law block.

“One more!” Oikawa calls, finger in the air as he goes back to the serve line, and Hajime readies himself, sleepiness burnt away by the adrenaline of the game.

The energy rush sustains Hajime throughout the rest of practice and his Economics I lecture before finally crashing sometime before lunch. Oikawa finds him in the literature journals section of the library; it is the darkest and least occupied area of the building, and thus Hajime’s favorite hiding place when he needed peace and quiet.

He groans as he hears Oikawa approach, burrowing his head even further into the fold of his arms. “I can’t,” he mumbles mostly coherently. “Go running, walking, whichever it is. I can’t.” He feels a little guilty for disappointing Oikawa, but honestly, Hajime doubts he’d be able to make it out of the library awake, much less do loops around the pond Oikawa insists spawns Magikarps, or in the field of Eevees beside the psychology building.

Instead of leaving, or dragging Hajime up anyway, Oikawa simply pulls out the chair beside Hajime’s, dropping into it. “Did you know this building is considered a gym?” His voice is hushed, but Hajime recognizes the competitiveness saturating it. “I’m going to _own_ it.”

Hajime falls asleep to the tinny sounds of Oikawa’s pokemon battling some other person’s pokemon. At some point, he thinks he feels a hand combing through his hair, patting his head gently, but slumber pulls him under before he has time to wonder about it.

\---

“Iwa-chan, Iwa-chan!” The bedroom door slams open and Hajime jumps, keysmashing random characters into his lab report as Oikawa barrels on through, face aglow. “Look!”

Hajime blinks at the phone shoved almost in his face. “Congrats?...on a,” He squints at the big-bellied virtual creature. “Snorlax? Really?”

“Do you know how hard it is to get one of these?” Oikawa does an impromptu jig, grinning fit to burst. “And look at its combat power! It’s _beautiful._ ”

Oikawa’s joy is infectious, and Hajime couldn’t help the smile it effortlessly draws out of him. “Sounds like all the running paid off.”

“Yup - totally worth the 10KM! I knew I was right to have a good feeling about that one. Makki’s going to be so jealous.”

With how close Oikawa is standing, it’d be easy to pull him down into Hajime’s lap and hold him close. Hell, Hajime would even be willing to watch him play PokeGo that way, his head propped on Oikawa’s bony shoulder as he breathed in the scent of Oikawa’s shampoo, some artificial-berry smell that tends to linger too long in his hair. Hajime knows a little bit about Pokemon from when the card game was popular; he’d be able to talk a little about them if he had to. And boy, did he want to, if that would mean Oikawa leaning up against him, intimate and warm.

Oikawa looks up from where he had been presumably gloating to Hanamaki via Line. “Oh, were you working on one of your assignments?”

“Mm hmm, the Bio lab report with Masami-san. I’m supposed to send her my copy by tonight so she can crosscheck it against her results.”

Something flickers lightning-quick across Oikawa’s face. “Ugh, so _dull_ , Iwa-chan. I’m surprised you haven’t bored her to death yet.”

The dismissive statement shatters the lap-fantasy faster than a bucketful of cold water. It sucks to be reminded that Oikawa has probably showered that damned Snorlax with more loving affection in the past few minutes than he has Hajime in months. Hajime and Oikawa are best friends - that’s the status quo, that’s how it will likely remain.

“Oh, fuck off, Oikawa. I’m dumb and ugly, I get it. Happy now?” Hajime mentally winces at how sharp his reply is, lashing out to hurt. He deliberately turns back to his laptop before he could spew more damage, tapping the Backspace button in between measured breaths.

Oikawa doesn’t leave right away, or in the huff Hajime expects. Instead, there is a small, awkward silence which Hajime very pointedly ignores, typing random phrases into his word document in an effort to look busy.

Eventually, Oikawa says in a tiny voice so unlike his usual flippant tone, “You’re not really dumb or ugly, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime doesn’t dare to reply. Another small eternity passes before Oikawa asks, so soft Hajime could barely hear it, “Do you still want to go running tomorrow? ”

Hajime entertains the idea of being as casually cruel as Oikawa, then sighs. “Yeah, fine. Not before 6AM though.”

A quiet “Ok”, and Hajime wants to turn around, seize Oikawa and apologize for...what, exactly? Being an asshole? Overreacting to what was a typical Oikawa-ism? Liking him?

Before he could figure it out, Oikawa had shuffled out of his room, the door clicking shut behind him.

\---

Oikawa wakes him at 6:30 AM, and doesn’t push for longer than the standard 2KM jog.

Hajime thinks he should feel relieved. He doesn’t.

“Oikawa,” he sighs finally after the guilt had eaten away at most of his restraint, and ruined his breakfast. “Are you mad at me?”

The other boy glances at him, confusion evident as he swallows his bite of sausage. “Iwa-chan, I thought you were mad at _me_.”

“I’m not,” he mutters at the table, vengefully stabbing at his half-eaten toast. “Mad. At you. I’m just...there’s a lot of coursework this semester.”

He can’t bring himself to vocalize the actual apology, but Oikawa beats him to it. “I’m sorry too. For being rude about your work.” He bites his lip, peering at Hajime through the fringe of his lashes. “Truce?”

“Truce,” Hajime agrees immediately, and is rewarded by a small, but genuine smile.

Things bounce back to normal. Well, somewhat normal for Hajime anyway. Oikawa still steals looks at him sometimes when he thinks Hajime is not looking (hah! Joke’s on him - Hajime is always looking), but the teasing remarks about Hajime’s person have clearly been dialled down. In return, Hajime takes extra care to keep his temper in check.

For the most part anyway. He can’t be faulted for the occasional slip up when Oikawa purposefully provokes him, but the asshole was asking for it, okay?

\---

The volleyball team captain stops Hajime with a hand on his shoulder before he could enter the locker room behind the others. “Yo, Iwaizumi. Gotta ask you something real quick.”

“Sure.” Their captain is an imposing postgrad, and a scarily efficient blocker. He would be more formidable a figure if Hajime hadn’t seen him renaming every single one of his Jigglypuffs after the AKB48 group members.  

“Your full name, it’s ‘Iwaizumi Hajime’, right? As in the single kanji?”

Hajime frowns. “Yes?...”

“Ah.” The captain nods slowly, as if something had solved itself. “I see.”

Then he walks away, leaving Hajime even more befuddled than before.

\---

“Yo, Oikawa.” Hajime toes his shoes off at the front door. “Could I borrow your phone for a bit? My phone battery’s dead, and I need to let my mom know she doesn’t need to send me more sweaters for winter.”

“It’s on my bed!” Oikawa calls from where he is in the kitchen. “Same password as the last time!”

“Cheers.”

The phone is where Oikawa said it is, sitting on top of a mess of blankets rucked together. Absent-mindedly keying Oikawa’s pass code in, Hajime blinks as he is met not with the colorful phone wallpaper Oikawa used, but with a Pokedex page, the 3D creatures arranged in neat rows across the whole screen. There doesn’t seem to be any particular order to Oikawa’s pokemon, though some of them appeared to have been given nicknames according to Oikawa’s fancy; a CP460 Wigglytuff had been dubbed ‘Makki’, with a ‘Mattsun’ Alakazam positioned right beside it. Hajime snorts aloud at a CP11 Magikarp, ingloriously named ‘Ushiwaka’.

“Disgusting as always,” he mutters as he spots a CP26 Weedle, christened ‘Tobio-chan’. But the grumbling is halfhearted at best; Oikawa’s pettiness is nothing new, and far be it for Hajime to begrudge his private indulgence in it.

He really should close the app - despite all his bragging, Oikawa is surprisingly private about his Pokedex, only showing off his catches’ profiles rather than the whole index. Plus, Hajime still has a text to his mom to send off. But his curiosity has been sparked - he has already come across a ‘Mad-Dog-chan’ (a Growlithe) and a ‘Yahaba-chan’ (a Clefable). If Oikawa’s naming sense is consistent (and Hajime bets it is), there should be an ‘Iwa-chan’ stuck somewhere amongst the poke-army Oikawa appears to be amassing.

So he scrolls down, and there it is - a Pinsir named ‘Bug Iwa-chan’. Hajime glances at its combat power and does a double-take. At CP1105, it is by far the strongest pokemon Iwaizumi has seen in Oikawa’s arsenal thus far.

He would have stopped there, curiosity satiated, if not for the Vaporeon right beside it, named ‘Water Iwa-chan’. Again, another powerhouse at CP1440.

“What the…”

Another swipe of his finger brings him to ‘Iwa-tan’, a majestic-looking Magmar, also with an unexpectedly high CP digit. On a hunch, Hajime clicks on the option to sort the pokemon in descending order according to their combat power, only to stare at the phone, text message completely forgotten as he beholds the pokemon that pop up on the screen.

"Iwa-chan, are you don-" Oikawa's voice trails off uncertainly, the man himself pausing in the doorway of his bedroom. "What - are you on my _PokeGo_?"

Hajime can't tear his eyes away the small screen. "Oi, Trashykawa...why are all your strong pokemon named after me?"

And they are - two whole rows with variations on Hajime's name. The top three pokemon Oikawa owns are a CP1810 Gyrados named 'Grumpy Iwa-chan', a CP2200 Lapras with the moniker 'Iwaizumi' and a Snorlax...the very same Snorlax Oikawa had run 10km for, still boasts about, and aggressively farms Stardust for in order to 'make it the strongest Snorlax in Tokyo' with a growing CP of 2650...

The Snorlax’s name consists of a single kanji: 'Hajime'.

Oikawa's face is a mess of emotions - anxious, panicked, ashamed, with a strange thread of pride stringing them all together. "Don't you dare diss my Hajime - he's defended whole gyms for hours before. _Hours,_ Iwa-chan. Do you know how hard that is?"

"'Your' Hajime?"

Oikawa had gathered enough of his wits to snatch his phone back out of Iwaizumi's unresisting hands, cradling it close to him. "Yes, _my_ Hajime. My reliable, perpetually sleepy, stupidly strong Poke-Ace, Hajime-chan." His eyes are defiant, as if daring Hajime (the man) to confront him over the name.

But Hajime is less concerned with the goddamned name Oikawa had given his Snorlax than he was with how his name, his _given first name_ , had sounded on Oikawa's tongue, tinted with affection and fond possessiveness.

“Before you ask, these are _my_ pokemon, I can name them whatever I want, and no, I will _not_ rename Hajime-chan.” Oikawa had taken on a defensive stance, spots of color high in his cheeks. His shoulders and arms are tensed, as if waiting to be dealt some kind of physical blow, and there is a sort of terror in his eyes that spoke of being caught doing something he shouldn’t have done.

All these details, lost on Hajime, who is still reeling from the revelation, no, from the implication of the Snorlax’s name regarding where Hajime himself stood in Oikawa’s esteem.

“Say that again.”

“...I can name my Pokemon whatever I want?...”

“No, dumbass. Your damn Snorlax’s name. _My_ name.”

“Ha...jime.” Just like the first time, the name is a caress in Oikawa’s familiar lilt, soft and uncertain, rippling across Hajime’s skin and raising goosebumps as he shudders, fists clenching and unclenching by his side. “ _Hajime_.”

“You…”Hajime swallows, pulling himself back together, aware of how inane this whole situation was. “You haven’t called me that since we were kids.”

“You told me not to.” There is a ghost of a smile on Oikawa’s face, even as he tentatively relaxes his stance, now that the threat of a punch to the face seems to have been neutralized. “Remember? In the first week of high school, because ‘it would seem weird’ - your words. But hey, my Pokemon, my choices of names, right? It’s not as if it hurts anyone. And you don’t play PokeGo, so I figured you wouldn’t ever notice.”

“So...why?” Iwaizumi gestures at the phone. “It’s not even ‘Iwa-chan’, it’s...you named your Snorlax ‘Hajime’, Oikawa.”

“I didn’t ‘name’ it - It inherited the name. I…” Oikawa hesitates, then visibly steels himself to continue. “It works on a succession system - the strongest one I own is always called ‘Hajime’. My Lapras owned it until the Snorlax came along.”

“You,” Hajime breathes, “are absolutely ridiculous.”

Any protests Oikawa may have had are promptly pushed back into him by Hajime’s mouth, firm and forceful as his tongue deftly coaxes Oikawa’s lips apart to slip past them. Oikawa’s phone clatters to the floor, but neither of them notice it, too caught up with pressing closer to each other, hands slipping under shirts and collars to press, hot against skin.

“Hajime, Hajime, Ha-a-” Oikawa is babbling now, the syllables spilling like water between them and the sound is even sweeter, knowing that this name was purely his, not some 3D graphic stand-in. Hajime supposes he owes PokeGo some gratitude for its role in making all this happen, but he’s too busy thrusting his hand down beneath the waistband of Oikawa’s pants to see if he could wring out even more variations of his name in that deliciously wrecked voice.

Screw catching them all - if Hajime could catch just one thing, he would use everything in his power to cling fast to this person who had walked alongside him from childhood until now, to ensure that Oikawa stays by his side, always.

And if that takes every ball, lure, whatever it was the game of life might supply him with, it’d be worth it.

\---

(“...What is this.”

“What is what, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime stares incredulously at Oikawa, lounging naked on his bed. “You named your Chansey ‘Hajimei’. _Hajimei,_ what the actual fuck.”

“But it’s a cute name!” Oikawa scrambles up, enthusiasm written all over his face. “Don’t you think so?”

Oikawa manages to press a kiss to Hajime’s mouth before he could complain any further. The Chansey’s name stays.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> (ง ͠ ͠° ل͜ °)ง 
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> [Enzen](http://wataksampingan.tumblr.com/) is still the actual best. She wishes it be known that her Onix is named Iwaizumi, despite being only a fraction of Snorlax-umi's CP.
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](http://hweiro.tumblr.com/) and flail with me over Iwaoi!


End file.
